Father & Son
by tamarindblue
Summary: He understands his father so well now, He understands Anakin, all his tumults and falls and dilemmas like never before. Every father dies with the death of his child. There is no battle to be won. It is a breakeven loss.


**Father and Son**

He is not sure why he did it up to the moment …

He is not sure if it is worth, the ideology, the ideals.

Was the first order worth murdering his f… Han Solo for?

Maybe if it was worth, he might have found some peace.

He doubts, no he knows that beats the whole purpose of it in the first place.

Snoke manipulated him into doing it just to shackle him to the first order, just to cement and affirm all the doubts, the self loathe, the despair and sadness into him, to sniff out any hope that he might reach out.

All the agony and pain and fear is crippling him, bending and drowning him… he doesn't grow stronger, this doesn't feel like strength, he doesn't grow more or less apathetic on the contrary, everything is exaggerated, everything is in live colour and …

He is fool for allowing himself to be mired like that, a fool for swapping place only to find himself in the same dilemma as where he started ... he cannot fight the light in him, it is a quintessential part of him as much as the dark.

What a fool he is ... An utter fool for rushing down a road with no return.

* * *

Hux sees him for whom he really is.

Ironically, better than Snoke ever could

And it is unnerving to say the least …

Hux is his predator, always willing to fish for any cracks, always eyeing him ... ready to exploit any vulnerabilities, ready to tear into him, has he ever show a sign of weakness.

He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

He is slithery and wily, always pointing out the patricide in front of him, always pushing him to buckle down under the weight he knows fully well he is bearing …

Always watching from the shadows as he retreats into his chambers and slashes everything out, as he rages and destroys and burns and breaks everything ...

Until he hears that small voice in his head.

* * *

He has grown accustomed to her voice that sometimes he doesn't know when his conscious ceases to exist before hers seems to stream in.

He was supposed to hate it when she streamed into his conscious as much as he hated it when Luke it, he was supposed to shut her out of his system not to soak it with her essence,

They know so much about each other now, so much as to realise how striking their similarities are, how stark their differences as well.

They know so much that they charted this doomed territory,

Willing to kill each other and kill for each other,

Wanting to wholly merge and at the same time repel each other so much that it physically hurts.

It was only a matter of time before all their hate and passion would materialise into a charred piece of a beautiful canvas on a lonely battlefield where the distinction between spar and surrender became blurred.

* * *

Hux points out his change in demeanour ... as swiftly as a sharp blade.

He knows he cannot properly pinpoint the reason for the 'paradigm' shift as he calls it.

And he will make sure he doesn't, even it meant to kill him.

His affair with Rey was theirs and theirs alone.

* * *

He could sense the change in the force the moment she stepped out to him on the desolate planet they have been frequenting.

Her eyes were shining like a clear water surface bouncing off the moonlight, there was some sort of inexplicable emotion in her eyes, happiness with a tinge of sorrow, a ripple of worry and uncertainty.

When the realisation dawned in on him, he froze

It can't be true.

'I am keeping him' she whispers too tenderly

'I don't want him' he bites back with as much spite he could muster.

Before he can process his hand is on his lightsaber and she is staring wide at him before recovering and taking fighting stance.

In the midst of the raging fire burning his conscious, he could feel her trying to reach out to him, trying to soothe him.

'There is another way, Ben. Just leave all this behind and '

He cuts her sharply 'Don't be naïve, scavenger girl' He puts as much venom and condescension in the last two words.

He keeps giving blow after blow until she gives out and collapse in front of him, maybe at that point when his lightsaber is hovering too close to her neck that his sanity returns and he throws his lightsaber as though it is plagued.

He carries her through whispering all kind of sweet lies into her hair, whispering the age old lie of 'everything will be fine' above her whimpers of 'you are afraid'

He stays nestled beside her, clinging onto her as if she was his lifeline.

At Dawn, he gets up before her exhaustion wears out and leaves her on the desolate planet.

He leaves her bleeding from the rough wound he inflicted by his blunt knife.

* * *

Their connection is in turn severed,

And he grows cold, bitter … so bitter and cold that he unnerves Hux.

So bitter and Cold that he no longer need all the effort he'd put to hide and mask the light from Snoke.

He commits every kind of atrocity at the time.

But never does he go into a face to face combat with Rey.

He feels some very thin thread tugging at his mind sometimes, a tiny sliver of light that pulls slightly at his conscious.

He is tempted to follow.

And when he follows, the first thing he sees is the sun.

* * *

Rey.

He sees through the boy's eyes (Matt, he learns is his name) as his mother and the tr... Finn dotes on the boy the way he should, as the ailing general and her brother teach and train him. He sees as the Wookie looks at him with both wistfulness and pride and as the effusive pilot takes him to fly.

And when worry takes over him, her pries through the boy's mind more and more deeper, until he realises that the boy with bright blue mischievous eyes and dark black hair is so much Rey from the inside, the boy is light, pure untainted light.

He wonders had he been with the boy, would he have been that clear.

The wound in his torso aches.

And he watches through his son's eyes, lingering like a wraith in his subconscious.

With the new connection came the new burden of hiding all from Snoke,

He is back to square one, pushing him away with more effort than before.

* * *

'Stay out of my son's mind, Kylo'

Obviously the boy started to sense that something was amiss and now they meet again after so long in their son's subconscious

She never used the name, she always used Ben, however annoyed he'd be at the usage and she was ferocious at least.

'long time, Rey'

It doesn't take long before everything brews into a storm that only stops at the shaky cries of their son as they tear through his subconscious.

He never seeks out the boy again, however much the boy seeks him.

And for the first time in so many years he mourns his father.

* * *

He has lost his purpose long ago; the moment his father fell into the abyss.

He has considered defecting, running off for so long now, yet he knows how childish the notion is, he has to stay if there is any chance to protect his son, the resistance has so thoroughly protected, from Snoke he has to walk towards his inevitable path of doom.

Snoke summons him and berates him for his waning faith. He demands his assertion that Kylo Ren is till a faithful subject, a loyal follower.

He demands he leads the upcoming raids against the resistance in flesh.

His heart sinks with dread.

* * *

He has utter faith now that his lineage was a cursed one.

How many times had father and son stood against each other on battlefield in this war?

Now that every step is leading towards the ultimate battle, he prays his heart out that he wouldn't have to face his son like that.

A strange sense of déjà vu washes over him as he gets ready for the approaching battle, and in a desperate hope he tries to tap through to Rey.

Surprisingly, she doesn't block him, he could hear her pleas over 'please just keep him safe, don't let all what we have been doing all these years go in vain'

He doesn't find a response; his mind is blank at that moment.

* * *

He sees his son for the first time on the desolate battle field, whilst he debris and ash of the battle is settling.

His son, an adolescent on the cusp of youth with his mother's refined features, his dark hair and his father's eyes, as he warily studies him.

He apprehensively holds onto his green lightsaber.

The world stops moving.

He stands there, without the slightest Idea what to do.

He understands his father so well now,

He understands Anakin, all his tumults and falls and dilemmas like never before.

Every father dies with the death of his child. There is no battle to be won. It is a breakeven loss.

It is an anguish that is indelible, just like his crimes.

He understands why his father, with all his faults and stubbornness, never fought, just willingly surrendered.

He drops his light saber and marches towards his son.

He is both quite selfish and selfless as to embrace death at the boy's hands rather than kill him.

He is so ready to forgive him and even thank him for it as well.

He throws down the heavy weight of his mask.

He stands mere inches from the boy, now.

'You are Kylo Ren?'

And before he has the chance to correct him, to tell him that he was Ben Solo he could feel the weight of the boy slumping forward towards him, as his eyes become bleary and he gurgles blood.

He catches his son, as his warm blood seeps through his layers of black.

Everything comes full circle.

He could register Rey's sobs mingling with an anguished wail leaving his heaving chest and the gloating voice of Hux in the distance 'Is that the secret you have been nursing all that long, Ren or should I say Solo?'

he doesn't know if it was his force surge, or Rey's or even Matt's last that incinerated Hux into the black crisp he was right now.

* * *

He sets out for his sole quest, his only purpose: Snoke.

'you thought I was a gullible fool, all that long, Ben Solo'

'I thought you called me Kylo Ren' he struggles to articulate as he is pinned against the derelict walls.

'you were never Kylo Ren, whatever dark you were shrouded in, I have always known you were Ben Solo, I just nurtured your imaginary fissure, to use you as much as I could to my advantage, like your father priorly said'

The cruel sarcasm by which he says every word, so thoroughly to sink them in, burns Ben.

His father was right, he learnt that a long time ago.

* * *

Rey and her companions didn't stagger for long after he signalled her.

It is fitting that she gives the final blow, not him, not Luke or Finn.

Luke sits quietly, beside the battered body, contemplating his now struggling nephew, his once surrogate son, who bleeds in black.

His eyes weighting every exhaled breath, speaking broken apologies for not being able to save him.

It was him who was stupid, he didn't want to be saved.

Ben stares into the sun one last time, then into a clear blue sky.


End file.
